U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Gayle Smith will lead the U.S. delegation to the 26th Annual African Union Summit. Joining the delegation will be Department of State Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski, National Security Council Senior Director for Africa Cathy Byrne, USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa Linda Etim, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan Don Booth, and Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa Tom Perriello.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its partners have announced 16 prize winners under the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge. USAID will award $10,000 to each winner and provide technical support to help them advance their solutions to stamp out illegal trade in wildlife. Winners are eligible to compete for one of four Grand Prizes worth as much as $500,000. USAID will use Grand Prizes to target and invest in the most promising solutions.

On January 28-29, U.S. Government officials, African energy experts, and private sector companies focused on advancing access to electricity in Africa will convene for the Powering Africa Summit. Power Africa partners will open the Summit with an in-depth conversation about the Power Africa Roadmap, which outlines how they will reach President Obama's goals of adding 30,000 new megawatts of cleaner electricity generation and connecting 60 million homes and businesses to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. They will also discuss the Power Africa Tracking Tool (PATT), a mobile app that provides previously unavailable data to increase transparency and drive more deals in the African energy sector.

On Monday January 25, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Gayle Smith will host a discussion with honored guests, President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim and President of the African Development Bank Group Akinwumi Adesina, on the future of power on the African continent. U.S. National Security Advisor Ambassador Susan Rice will give concluding remarks. The event will also feature the launch of a Power Africa Roadmap that will outline the way forward for the initiative.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator Ariel Pablos-Mendez will visit Bali, Indonesia January 25 - January 28 for the 2016 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP).

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Gayle Smith will travel to Davos, Switzerland from January 20-23 to attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and meet with leaders from government, business, and civil society.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Asia Jonathan Stivers will travel to Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Laos from January 20-29, 2016, to oversee U.S. development initiatives ranging from health to economic development to governance as well as meet with USAID Asia mission directors, government officials, implementing partners, and civil society leaders.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced two new partnerships today to add resources and cutting-edge technologies to fight drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, announced a $15-20 million pledge as part of a new partnership with USAID to combat Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB). USAID will also partner with Cepheid, a maker of molecular systems and tests, to speed diagnosis of MDR-TB through increased access to rapid, accurate diagnostic tools.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at USAID released a report today on USAID's Cuban Civil Society Support Program. The OIG found that USAID has already completed action on several of its recommendations. The Agency will complete action on the remaining recommendations by July 16, 2016.

New aid will address the humanitarian crisis and the impact of El Niño

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced an additional $88 million in humanitarian assistance for Ethiopia today to address the humanitarian crisis resulting from the impacts of the El Niño phenomenon.The additional aid brings the total U.S. humanitarian assistance for Ethiopia to more than $435 million since the start of fiscal year 2015 and increases funding for nutrition, water, food, sanitation, and hygiene support.

The U.S. Agency for International Development's U.S. Global Development Lab today announced $5 million in follow-on funding to Off Grid Electric. The award, funded through the Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) program, will allow Off Grid Electric to test its model at scale and catalyze additional investments to reach more than one million households.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing an additional $173 million in lifesaving emergency food assistance for those suffering from hunger as a result of the conflict that broke out in South Sudan two years ago.

As part of the U.S. Government's approach to addressing the threat of climate change, Power Africa will forge several new partnerships and launch new tools during the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP 21) to support the development of renewable energy across sub-Saharan Africa. Scaling up access to cleaner electricity helps mitigate climate change and enhance resilience to climate shocks.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Beth Hogan, will travel to Guatemala December 1-3 to launch the Central America Regional Security Initiative's new place-based strategy, which integrates prevention efforts and law enforcement to reduce homicides and violent crime. The joint effort between USAID and the Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) will target the most dangerous communities and high-risk youth in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which face the highest murder rates in the world.

Today, the United States Senate confirmed Gayle E. Smith to be the seventeenth Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Gayle's confirmation comes at a unique time when we have the tools, technologies and approaches to end extreme poverty and its most devastating corollaries, widespread hunger and preventable child and materna deaths.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will host a two-day conference to present business opportunities in Pakistan's clean energy sector to American, international, and Pakistani clean energy project developers and investors on December 1-2 at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Launched earlier this year, the U.S.-Pakistan Clean Energy Partnership seeks to advance energy sector reforms, improve Pakistan's investment framework, and ultimately add 3,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2019. USAID's Assistant to the Administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs Larry Sampler, Pakistan's Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif, and Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Jalil Abbas Jilani will provide opening remarks on Tuesday, December 1 at 9:00 a.m. and participate in a press conference immediately following their remarks.